


Accidental Honey

by adrianna_m_scovill



Series: Create Your Own Context [4]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 14:48:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14083302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adrianna_m_scovill/pseuds/adrianna_m_scovill
Summary: Per request, Barba (accidentally) calling Benson 'honey' for the first time. Originally written as a 10-piece Twitter thread :)





	Accidental Honey

Barba’s calmness was only serving to further annoy Benson. She wanted him to be as upset as she was. She wanted to argue, but Barba seemed uninterested in bickering. He was scribbling away on his legal pad, barely paying attention to her.

“Why are you not more upset about this?” she asked.

He sighed and looked up at her, raising his eyebrows. “Because I have absolute confidence that you’ll bring me something I can actually use, Lieutenant. Until then, I have other things to worry about.” Calling her _Lieutenant_ was as close as he was going to come to taking her bait, she realized, and she frowned at the top of his head as he returned his attention to his notes.

“I’ll get you something—and then you’ll take it to trial?”

“Honey, you do your job and I’ll do mine,” he said, quietly, without looking up.

Benson froze. _Honey?_ she thought. Her temper flared, in spite of her surprise—she expected misogyny from a lot of people, but not Barba. She latched onto the anger to avoid thinking about the flutter in her stomach, an unfamiliar feeling that she didn’t want to acknowledge.

Barba raised his head.

“Honey?” she said. “Really?”

He looked stunned, and she knew that he’d only belatedly realized what he’d said. He opened his mouth and gave his head a little shake, his eyes widening with something like alarm.

At the look on his face, her anger evaporated. He hadn’t meant it to be condescending; rather, it seemed to have slipped out as an unchecked term of endearment, and her stomach fluttered again.

“I…didn’t…”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so flustered,” she said, noting the darkening of his cheeks.

“Sorry,” he said, shaking his head again. He frowned. “That…Sorry. Was inexcusable. It won’t happen again.”

She walked over to his desk. He held her gaze, but his expression was wary. When she bent and put her palms on the desk, she saw his throat bob. “You’re lucky, Counsellor,” she said.

He hesitated. “Lucky?” he asked, after a moment, staring up at her.

She shrugged a shoulder. “I didn’t hate it,” she said. She watched his expression soften as he searched her eyes, and after a few seconds, she pushed herself upright. “I’ll see you later,” she said, and she saw his lips quirk into a smile as she turned away.

 


End file.
